I'm a law student and long time tutor who's just made the move to Varsity. I've been tutoring for about eight years now, since I first started working with a friend of a friend's child on his SATs. I graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in economics, and I'm at Hofstra Law School.
I tutor the SATs, ACTs, LSAT, GRE, basically all high school subjects, and a bevy of college ones, including history, psychology, economics, law, and writing. That's not because I'm an expert in everything - it's because the only thing I enjoy more than learning is helping someone else learn. A good tutor doesn't just explain the subject to you - they explain what's cool about it, how it applies to your life, and why you want to learn it. If I have to brush up on my AP Chemistry as an excuse to explain why dimensional analysis is actually the most useful math you'll ever learn, I find it thrilling, not a chore.
That's really my whole paradigm, as a tutor. Every subject has a relation to both everyday life, and to the coolest parts of the collective achievements of humanity. Learning not just what Pi is, but what it means, is treading the same ground as the people who built the pyramids.
We lose that joy - the enrichment granted by greater understanding - too often in sterile and boring classrooms. My goal is to help students attain mastery by providing the context and tools that let them have "Eureka!" moments.
Learning is fun, and tutoring is more than just being a living wikipedia article. It's giving life to the dry and soulless problem set, making fun of the trap answers on the LSAT, and linking history to its greatest stories. I don't need gimmicks and games to make that happen. I just find where a student and I can connect over the material, how they learn, and what they're having trouble with.
I won't guarantee anyone a score on a test or promise that everyone can get an A in every subject. But I do promise not to waste anyone's time or money. Every session, my students will learn new facts, new techniques, or new ways to understand some boring idea. That's not because I'm the smartest guy in the room: it's because I simply love seeing people learn.